cnn national security contributor fwran townsend is joining now. as we often mention there is a the former white house security adviser and a member of the cia external advisory commit thai tee and in libya with her employer. and also with us is former cia officer bob behr. you have new reporting on the status of the fbi investigation. what can you tell us? >> it is extraordinary and astonishing to me who worked with the fbi over a decade. you understand when this happens and the fbi opens an investigation one of the first things they do is go to the state department and say please request permission for us to enter this country, libya, get to the crime scene, benghazi. please request that we have the security and ability to do that and that we will have access to the scene and access to the individuals that libya takes in to custody. while the fbi made that request to the state department. what we found out today from senior law enforcement officials while the fbi made it to tripoli they have never made it to benghazi. >> they haven't been on them ground in benghazi? >> they have not. it was taking so long to gept permission to go to tripoli, the fbi deployed their personnel to a location in the region so they would be closer. they have conducted interviews of the state department and government personnel in libya at the time of the attack. they have gotten as far as tripoli but never gotten to benghazi. they made a request that the crime scene be secured as we know from public reporting, the state department, we don't know whether or not the state department put that request though libyans and whether or not it was denied or what happened to it. what we know for sure is the crime scene was never secured and the senior law enforcement official i spoke to said if we get there now it is not clear it will be of any use to us. the third and critical and astonishing point to me is one of the things we have to do is question the individuals, the libyans have in custody to get to the bottom of this and understand what they are learning. in fact, they made that request with from the state department. that was denied by libya. so the fbi has to pass questions from the state department to the libyan government. they put the questions and you wait like a child's game of telephone, the information to come back before you can follow up. not the ideal way to run an investigation. >> this is amazing information you are hearing from your sources. i want to play something for our viewers from last thursday. secretary clinton said this about this investigation. let's watch. >> we are at the early stages of an fbi investigation. the team from the fbi reached libya earlier this week. >> so she said they reached libya earlier this week. no mention of being on the ground in benghazi. you are saying they havent been on the ground benghazi. is she splitting hairs here? >> in fairness to the secretary, it may be she wanted to be coy about where in libya they were for security concerns. that would be understandable. but the fact is it is not clear they have even been inside of libya for very long. they had difficulty and we understand some bureaucratic infighting between the fbi and justice department on the one hand and the state department on the other hand. it took longer to get in the country. they have now gotten there but are still unable to get permission to go to benghazi. >> bob you have been involved in a number of aftermath investigations. have you ever heard of anything like this. where whether it is bureaucratic infighting where they are not allowed in a crime scene or have you heard of anything like this? >> it is outrageous. in the sense that lib kwla is obviously on the edge but i have seen the fbi after an attack like this, we're right on the scene. i was secured by state department security officers or u.s. military. the fbi got right in, checked what was missing, checked the weapons and everything else that was used in the take. i have never seen this since the takeover of our embassy in teheran in '79. it tells me, again, that libya is a precarious situation. the state department realizes that the fbi cannot fight its way in to a crime scene. the fbi has got to be secured when it arrives on the ground and there's obviously none. the libyans are not cooperating. if they are not letting the fbi talk to the people they have arrested, and frankly i think those people are probably the types, the usual suspects. they have nothing to do with the attack, but that's just my opinion. this is an investigation that cannot possibly, at this point, turn up very much useful. >> yeah, for libyans not allowing any access directly to the suspects, i mean, what does i that say to you? it doesn't portend well at all? >> not at all. it is the libyans they can't decide which side they are on. this is an attack on u.s. soil. it was an act of aggression and if they can't tell us who did it, why and where these people are that they in fact arrested than the libyan government is on the wrong side. >> mr. lake, you broke the story in the daily beast that administration officials knew almost immediately that this was a terror attack. you say they knew within 24 hours. >>. >> it was largely the intelligence community that collected a lot of information that pointed to al qaeda but they were able to point the location of one of the attackers n part because the person used social media. there were a number of clues, if you will, that were outside of the intelligence community. ayman al-zawahri, the head of ail kie ta congratulated them for getting vengeance against one of the key jihadists who he asked them to get vengeance on. the date of the attack is another thing. in addition to that there was intelligence coming in and four attackers were identified within 24 hours. >> eli, intelligences sources say they located one attacker using social media. did they know his exact location? >> yes. i'm -- i deliberately withheld details on that because the person, as i understand is still at large. >> fair enough. >> do we know if anyone has targeted or been targeted or arrested? can you say? >> at this point, i have mixed signals. there's a difference. there were 50 people or so arrested by libyan authorities. it's unclear whether they were innocent or guilty or rounding up the usual suspects. in terms of any u.s. actions, nothing has been done at this point. >> you have talked to a number of sources on this? >> yes. i would say as the story was coming ouft, in the aftermath of the attacks, people actually approached me and began kind of telling me what i would call the unauthorized version of events. >> fran, you also talked to a senior law enforcement source who corroborated eli lake's report that them knowing within a 24-hour period or short order that this was terrorist -- >> law enforcement sources said to me from day one we knew it was a terrorist attack and we are mystified by why the seniors in the administration have not been clear about that. the other thing is when you look at why hasn't this crime scene been secured? after all we know the militias and libyan government were in benghazi. they were capable of doing it. it underscores why has this investigation been handled, mishandled and so differently from every other international -- >> let me play devil's advocate to give the administration benefit of the doubt or point of argument. if intelligence community knew within 24 hours it was a terror attack is it possible administration officials didn't want to say that for security e investigative reason or they wanted to make sure in the fog of battle often intelligence is wrong in the first few hours. >> that may -- i think the last explanation, anderson, that you offer is the most likely. this is an administration, they have been burned by putting early information out there. where they stepped from it and looked foolish. it may be they didn't want to say that. the problem with that explanation is, when the director of the counterterrorism center says it is a terrorist attack the administration is very slow, even up to yesterday when the president's address to the u.n. general assembly slow to embrace this that it is a terror attack despite the fact -- you can't keep pointing to the film and protest when they show up with rpgs and mortars. >> that's the thing, eli, arguing against what my devil's advocate question was, they were publicly given a narrative. they were publicly linking this to that video as opposed to jugs saying we are investigating it. >> i think there are two different things going on right now. one is what happened in cairo? that clearly stemmed in part from a broadcaster who had jihadist sympathies talking about the internet video out in june. the second is what happened in libya. th has nothing to do as far as i can tell with the outrage over the video that started from a broadcaster in cairo. i think those two narratives kind of merged, at least in the telling of senior white house officials and other administration officials. >> bob, to you, what is the significance of this and secretary clinton made the strongest statement from the administration making a link between the attack and al qaeda. but you have been saying this since shortly after the attack. what do you think is the significance of the information we are hearing tonight. >> i think it is political. i think the white house is reluctant to admit that libya has been lost or potentially lost. no administration wants to admit that and i think frankly we can't blame losing libya on this administration. it was in the works for a long time t. not much they could dochl nevertheless, we have an election coming up and no one wants to take blame for messing up the arab spring. not that they have but this is politics of washington. even when you get a smoking gun, a white house wants to cover it up or explain it away. >> bob, is it too early to say that libya has been lost? >> i -- you know, just the academic stuff about eastern libya and, you know -- i've heard today that there are multiple assassinations around benghazi and different parts of libya where people are settling scores of all sorts of stripes. it is chaotic and going back to the fbi getting in to benghazi you can't blame them because there is nobody in control of a large city and a big part of libya. they are -- that's the problem at the root of it. all of the facts point to the fact that nobody's in control. >> fran, a lot of people will say you have societies that have been repressed for generations in a pressure cooker. the box has been open. a lot of weird things come out of the box but maybe long term there is things will move in the right direction, as the u.s. sees it. do you buy that? how do you see it? >> the arab spring is, in fact, a long-term game. but what you have to understand, if it is terrorism that we are seeing and i feel confident based on everything that we know that it is. it raises the question for the administration, why didn't you see this coming? if there was intelligence about the growing presence of al qaeda in eastern libya, increasing threat and presence of libya. >> on the anniversary of 9/11 of all days. >> you can't under estimate until you have the answer you are reluctant to call it a terrorist attack. i think there is real problems with how this was handled before it happened. i think that is part of what is driving the hand oflg it. >> amazing reporting, fran. appreciate it. eli lake and bob baer thank you for joining us. we will have reaction from two key lawmakers. let us know what you think. and we're on facebook and on twitter. lib sweet tweeter later on tonight. how one man survived when an avalanche, a mountain of snow came roaring down on top of him. >> we had been having gusty winds throughout the night. so that is keeping you up also. then sure enough a gust of wind came that was with beyond what we felt. i told my partner, greg, that was in the tent with me, gosh, this is a really strong gust. greg said this isn't a gust. it's an avalanche. want to try to crack it? 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[ engine revs ] the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. welcome back. sources telling us not one single fbi agent has made it to benghazi to the scene where four americans were killed on 9/11. also the same source is telling our fran town sthaend fbi requests through the state department to get to libyans to secure the scenes have been unfulfilled. additionally according to sources, libyans in custody have not been made available for fbi questioning and from the get-0 go sources say it looked like a terror attack. fran townsend broke this story moments ago. also on the phone johnny ie zhan sackson and michael turner, republican from ohio. senator isakson, your reaction to this information? >> well, this thing mystifies me. we have an administration without a policy. looking the other way, referring to the tragic death of an ambassador as a bump in the road. i do not understand the continuance of the president to look the other way and not admit this was obviously a terrorist attack. i cannot believe the fbi is not on the ground yet an there's not enough cooperation to get them there. >> congressman turner f the fbi investigators have yet to step foot in benghazi, how is the investigation supposed to be credible. >> it can't b. this goes to the failure of this administration's policies in libya. we have to put it in context of a year ago. the president spent nearly a billion u.s. dollars with warships off the coast of libya attacking the moammar gadhafi regime for the purposes of transitioning libya without a stated or defined policy of who we were supporting, what we hoped to gain, the geopolitical view of those who might come in to power an now the president continues to operate in an area where he has no articulated policy and now four americans, and our ambassador is dead and the president is yet to be able to describe what has occurred and what is the president's policy? why is it the president is operating a year after having attacked libya without a policy. >> congressman, to be fair, and support of the president and policy will point out that time was of the essence given moammar gadhafi's intention to go hout house to house and kill them like rats or words to that affect. you and senator jim demint have requested any diplomatic cables that might have come from embassy chris stevens. what are you hoping to learn, senator from those cables? >> first of all, it was myself and the senator from tennessee. >> sorry. first of all, cnn uncovered the diary of craig stevens at the scene. the diary said that craig stevens wrote he was in dang ener and on al qaeda's hit list and i cannot believe they wouldn't have sent cables to inform them of the danger and i think that is what happened. i think the state department should be forth right and know what communications they had. and if the united states state department and the country knew in advance of the attack that the ambassador felt like he was in danger of his death or imminent depiez from allocate that sending appalling message top the ambassadors representing america. >> you requested them. can you subpoena the items? >>. >> the committee can move forward and we talked to leadership of the committee. if they claim executive privilege and denies it, senator corcoran and i will pursue it. we think the american people, congress of the united states and the family of craig stevens deserve an answer and deserve it now. >> congressman, you have been in briefings about this. what do you make of the narrative that we have heard from administration officials that it was linked to this video and that it is still investigated. and today that within the intelligence community within the first 24 hours they felt confident it was a terror attack? >> well, anderson, i don't think we can give this administration the benefit of the doubt. i think the fact they are trying to blame it on not a terrorist attack comes to the heart of the fact that this is a president that took nato and the united states in to an offensive action in to libya without a clear, stated policy. spent a billion dollars and continues to have not a clear stated policy of what our relationship is to those in charge. the geopolitical evolution that is occurring there. at the same time is not providing the type of security that is necessary in the environment that we are in. i don't think there's anybody who in congress or the senate that can articulate what this president's policy is post moammar gadhafi and libya. he didn't articulate it when he began the military action and certainly isn't now leaving americans at risk. >> i think it is to be fair to the administration and there's obviously two republican members of congress. i mean, it's not clear how much the u.s. was in control of events. there were -- events happen around the world and events were happening in libya and the streets of egypt without the u.s. being in the forefront of it. and in many cases the u.s. was reacting, as often happens in foreign policy. the arab spring is not something the u.s. has control over. >> that's right. we have to understand that. that said, our experience tells us whether it is the bombings or the uss coal cole. in yemen, libya, because of a weak government. we know al qaeda has the wherewithal to take advantage of that and they look for safe havens around the world and it seems, it appears now that is what al qaeda was doing with libya, trying to i